The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 eBook

intoxicated with the wine they drank, became incapable.
Deprived of consciousness and more dead than alive,
she with all her sons lay down in that mansion to
sleep. Then when all the inmates of the house
lay down to sleep, there began to blow a violent wind
in the night. Bhima then set fire to the house
just where Purochana was sleeping. Then the son
of Pandu set fire to the door of that house of lac.
Then he set fire to the mansion in several parts all
around. Then when the sons of Pandu were satisfied
that the house had caught fire in several parts those
chastisers of foes with their mother, entered the subterranean
passage without losing any time. Then the heat
and the roar of the fire became intense and awakened
the townspeople. Beholding the house in flames,
the citizens with sorrowful faces began to say, ’The
wretch (Purochana) of wicked soul had under the instruction
of Duryodhana built his house for the destruction
of his employer’s relatives. He indeed hath
set fire to it. O, fie on Dhritarashtra’s
heart which is so partial. He hath burnt to death,
as if he were their foe, the sinless heirs of Pandu!
O, the sinful and wicked-souled (Purochana) who hath
burnt those best of men, the innocent and unsuspicious
princes, hath himself been burnt to death as fate
would have it.’

“Vaisampayana continued, ’The citizens
of Varanavata thus bewailed (the fate of the Pandavas),
and waited there for the whole night surrounding that
house. The Pandavas, however, accompanied by their
mother coming out of the subterranean passage, fled
in haste unnoticed. But those chastisers of foes,
for sleepiness and fear, could not with their mother
proceed in haste. But, O monarch, Bhimasena, endued
with terrible prowess and swiftness of motion took
upon his body all his brothers and mother and began
to push through the darkness. Placing his mother
on his shoulder, the twins on his sides, and Yudhishthira
and Arjuna on both his arms, Vrikodara of great energy
and strength and endued with the speed of the wind,
commenced his march, breaking the trees with his breast
and pressing deep the earth with his stamp.’”

SECTION CLI

(Jatugriha Parva continued)

“Vaisampayana said, ’About this time,
the learned Vidura had sent into those woods a man
of pure character and much trusted by him. This
person going to where he had been directed, saw the
Pandavas with their mother in the forest employed
in a certain place in measuring the depth of a river.
The design that the wicked Duryodhana had formed had
been, through his spies, known to Vidura of great
intelligence, and, therefore, he had sent that prudent
person unto the Pandavas. Sent by Vidura unto
them, he showed the Pandavas on the sacred banks of
the Ganga a boat with engines and flags, constructed
by trusted artificers and capable of withstanding
wind and wave and endued with the speed of the tempest
or of thought. He then addressed the Pandavas